US tech CEOs support Trump on Huawei restrictions: W. House

Chief executives from several US tech companies met with President Donald Trump on Monday and expressed “strong support” for policies restricting the use of products from Chinese telecom giant Huawei.

Washington accuses Huawei of working directly with the Chinese government and its intelligence services, which it says could pose security risks – claims the company denies.

In May, Trump hit Huawei with an executive order that effectively banned it from trading with any US companies, although a temporary license was issued shortly after.

At the meeting were Sundar Pichai of Google, Chuck Robbins, of Cisco, Robert Swan of Intel, Sanjay Mehrotra of Micron, Stephen Milligan of Western Digital Corporation, Steven Mollenkopf of Qualcomm, and Hock Tan of Broadcom.

“The CEOs expressed strong support of the president’s policies, including national security restrictions on United States telecom equipment purchases and sales to Huawei,” the White House said.

“They requested timely licensing decisions from the Department of Commerce, and the president agreed. The group was also optimistic about United States 5G innovation and deployments,” the statement read.

Huawei – a leader in next-generation 5G wireless technology – is barred from developing such networks in the United States.

Trump has put Huawei on its so-called entity list, which meant US companies needed a license to supply US technology to the Chinese firm.

Washington has been pressuring its allies to avoid using Huawei for deployment of 5G wireless.

The news comes as The Washington Post reported that Huawei secretly helped North Korea build and maintain the country’s commercial wireless network.

The Post, citing internal documents it obtained and people familiar with the arrangement, said Huawei has partnered with a Chinese state-owned firm Panda International Information Technology on projects in North Korea over at least eight years.

By doing so Huawei, which has used US technology in its components, may have violated US controls on exports to the isolated North Korea regime.